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The Basics of Story Planning - Part II (Protagonists)

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“THE BASICS OF STORY PLANNING” is based in a screenwriting seminar by Dany Campos, A writer of cinema and advertising, analyst of scripts for movie producers and also independent producers and finally a scriptwriting teacher in various colleges and on his Youtube channel, and also by a seminar I gave in the writing Discord server “Whisper Of Words”.

"SOMEONE wants something with intensity and finds obstacles to get it."

The first part of our sentence is "Someone", the protagonist, the one who the story is about.

One of the problems that can be often found in first drafts or scripts, as Dany Campos says, from people who just began writing is that it isn't clear who the protagonist of the story is and this is a grave problem.

An important thing to say before we continue, why do we call them PROTAGONISTS instead of HEROES? This is to avoid the moral implication in the word Hero which by definition is:

A person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities.

Contrary to what we called the lead character (The Hero) in our previous post about the Three-Act Theory by Aristotles (and introduction to this series), our protagonists can be more dimensional in the sense that they just won't be fully "good" or "evil".

When people read the story, they won't just be observers, on the contrary, they'll experiment the story emotionally and involve themselves into it almost as if they were one of the protagonists or characters.

The author needs an instrument that connects the reader with the story that facilitates the spectator's way through the events and locations.

This is what the protagonist is:

The protagonist is the emotional connection the spectator has with the story.

The protagonist is someone who does things to get things in the story, but it isn't the only one who does things to accomplish their goals. There can be other characters who take actions for their particular goals. Now, what's the difference between these characters and the protagonist?

The protagonist is the one who the readers will feel the most identified with or the one they will have the best wishes for.

Another factor that could helps us identify the protagonist is the time the author dedicates them in the story. When there's no clear protagonist in a story, the experience will be completely different and sometimes poorer.

Now; another interrogant we may have is: the protagonist must be someone with good intentions? No. we don't have to like their goals, but what's truly important, in the spectator-author association, is to understand why they do what they do, understand the reason why they are what they are. Now, if they aren't good people, what makes us identify ourselves in them? That thing is their humanity, the expression of their weaknesses and wishes, to then understand their goals and dreams.

The same thing can happen to protagonists that aren't human. In the case of fables or movies such as Cars or Wall-E, what makes us identify with them? The human attributes they have; animals are animals but they talk, could walk on two legs. It's their humanization.

Going back to the initiative, the spectators not rationally but emotionally will feel more attached to characters who impulse action which leads us to the events that take place in the story. The one who proposes and disposes.

In as story in which we may have a wide cast of characters we want to treat as protagonists you may ask yourself: what does it matter if one is the protagonist and the other isn't and yet the story is the same? Yes, however, as an author, it's important to know who is the protagonist, since the structure is defined from the protagonist.

In many cases, when there are too many characters the story may become confusing. Some examples of this could be some works such as The Game Of Thrones, but in others, there are characters who stands out from the others. In these cases, the election of the protagonist relies on the author, who chooses to give more time to the Chosen One so it's a more perceivable protagonist and, in other cases, the author lets the spectators choose who the protagonist is since there are so many characters different from one another that it's unavoidable for the spectator to feel attached to one than the rest. And finally, there are stories in which there truly are more than one protagonist, two, three or four. It is considered that more than four (4) protagonists is almost unviable in terms to catch the spectator's attention.

The larger the number of protagonists, the larger the risk of diluting the attention.

This produces some detachment from the story. A strategy that can be used in a way to "solve this problem" can be one of separate stories with their respective protagonists in which their characters hardly interact from one story to the other.

This can be seen by Shungiku Nakamura, author of Junjou Romantica and Sekaiichi Hatsukoii, who can be seen commonly using this strategy as they have three different stories with their respective protagonists and conflict and every now and then the stories interact but will never merge as one, keeping them separate on the same timeline. Even though the stories are different, they share common elements.

In Sekaiichi Hatsukoii, the three storylines develop in the same work environment: Marukawa Publishing. Between the three storylines, The Case of Onodera Ritsu is considered as the main story while the other two, The Case of Shouta Kisa and The Case of Chiaki Yoshino may be perceived as complementary. Other cases appeared as the story developed further, but these three are the most important.

It is important to remark the fact that just because the stories do not merge into one, it doesn't mean that the characters of one story couldn't have a minor or secondary role in another storyline.

To conclude, the protagonist, who can be more than one, is who the spectator will follow through the whole story and cherish an will be the device that will let you develop your story accordingly, letting you connect the audience to your writing in an emotional level.